STUDENT PRIVACY MURKY IN TECH WORLD

Rules Unclear On Whether Monarch Had Right To Search Phones

Public-school students can have their lockers searched, be sent home
for wearing a shirt that promotes drugs and have an article in a
school-sponsored newspaper or yearbook censored, but constitutional
limits when it comes to the privacy of technology -- such as cell
phones -- are murkier.

STORY TOOLS E-mail story Comments iPod friendly Printer
friendly More Schools Learning Lessons: Science -- it really is for
everyone Teaching an art for Williams School Briefs - Oct.
14 Share and Enjoy [?]

Share your video, photos and news tips.

All that's required for a school administrator to search a car or
backpack is "reasonable suspicion" that the student is breaking the
law or even a school rule.

"It's false to say you have zero privacy in school, but it's accurate
to say you have very little privacy," said Paul Ohm, a University of
Colorado law professor. "Courts are really willing to be very
forgiving of the steps school administrators take to maintain school
safety and school security."

But while the courts typically have sided with schools, students don't
give up all their rights when they walk through the school doors.

A school can't force students to stand and recite the Pledge of
Allegiance or search every student's backpack just in case one might
contain drugs or a weapon. Students also are allowed to wear clothing
that makes a political statement -- as long as it doesn't cause a
disruption -- and enjoy more freedom of speech with "underground"
publications.

However, there are fewer court decisions on privacy rights involving
electronic or Web-based technology to provide direction to schools. A
complaint against Louisville's Monarch High School is raising the
issue of the privacy of student cell-phone text messages.

"Until we have a court case that says a school has crossed the line,
it's hard to say where the line is," Ohm said.

The American Civil Liberties Union last week accused administrators at
Monarch High of violating state law and the Fourth Amendment by
seizing students' cell phones, reading their text messages and making
transcripts.

Boulder Valley technology policies The Boulder Valley School District
doesn't have a policy prohibiting cell-phone use in class, instead
leaving that decision up to individual schools. Generally, most
Boulder Valley high schools require cell phones to be turned off
during class but allow them to be used during lunch, free periods and
in the halls.

A new technology-use agreement for students says that "a school may
temporarily hold (pending parental or same-day pick up) personal
technology resources that are used inappropriately. Individual schools
may choose to have additional rules and regulations pertaining to the
use of personal, networked and communications resources in their
respective buildings."

But there is no policy that addresses whether schools can read text
messages on confiscated phones.

The ACLU of Colorado sent a letter Wednesday to the Boulder Valley
school board demanding changes after at least 13 students reported
having their cell phones taken and their text messages read at the end
of last school year. Parents of those students contacted the civil
rights group following the seizures.

'I'm pretty mad'

Chris Wolny, an 18-year-old Monarch High senior, is one of the
students whose cell phone was taken. He said the main student
involved, a sophomore, sent him a text message asking if he knew where
to get marijuana. Though he said his reply was "no," Wolny said he was
still called to the office.

When asked for his cell phone, Wolny said he handed it over and an
assistant principal began reading through his text messages. He said
he asked if that was legal, but the assistant principal didn't respond
and didn't explain why she was looking through his phone.

"They typed up all the messages I wrote," he said. "They took my phone
for a week-and-a-half to two weeks. They kept saying I was under
investigation."

He said he was suspended for three days for drug-related activity on
school grounds, though he said he replied "no" to several messages
from students asking him about getting marijuana.

"I'm pretty mad," he said. "They went through messages that were
private."

Martha McCarthy, an educational law and policy professor at Indiana
University and author of "Public School Law: Teachers' and Students'
Rights," said it appears the school crossed a line by reading text messages.

"It's OK to confiscate and hold a cell phone," she said. "To search
it, you would need to have reasonable suspicion that the student is
doing something unlawful or breaking a school rule."

What the ACLU says happened The American Civil Liberties Union gives
the following details of the cell-phone confiscation allegations at
Monarch High School:

On May 24, a school security officer brought a sophomore to see
Assistant Principal Drew Adams because the student was suspected of
breaking two school rules -- being in a prohibited parking lot and
smoking cigarettes.

Adams took the student's cell phone, calling it a "distraction," and
later told the student he had read text messages that made some
"incriminating" mentions of marijuana.

The student's mother learned Adams had written down text messages from
her son's phone, and when she asked for the phone back, she said Adams
insisted on keeping it over the Memorial Day weekend.

When the phone eventually was returned, the student's mother
discovered Adams had sent messages to her son's friends, posing as the
student.

After the first phone was taken, other student phones were seized, and
more teens were interrogated.

To read the full text of the ACLU's letter to the Boulder Valley
school board, click here.

CU's Ohm said it will come down to the reason school administrators
give for reading the text messages. So far, the school district has
not provided Monarch High's version of the incident.

"Courts measure the reason for versus the invasion of the search," he
said. "If this was really about smoking in the parking lot, it seems
like a stretch to say you need to read messages on a phone."

But, he said, it's possible the school will provide a more narrowly
defined reason.

As for allegations that a school administrator sent messages from a
student's cell phone to other students posing as the phone's owner, he
said the school is on shakier ground.

"From an ethical point of view, that seems much harder to defend," he
said.

Boulder Valley officials said they support Monarch and its
administrators, noting that the administrators contacted the
district's legal counsel before confiscating student cell phones and
transcribing text messages.

But, Boulder Valley spokesman Briggs Gamblin said, the district is
reviewing the incident.

School board members who responded to a request for their position on
the cell-phone issue -- Helayne Jones, Teresa Steele, Lesley Smith and
Patti Smith -- all said they don't have enough information yet to take
a position. But, they said, they're willing to review their policies
once the district's investigation is complete.

"I'm just going to wait until we're done investigating it and have
everything before us," Patti Smith said.

Freedom of speech at schools

Professor McCarthy said recent court decisions have upheld the right
of schools to discipline students for what they post online -- if
there's a connection to the school. Threatening a teacher or other
students on a MySpace page, for example, can get a student in trouble.

She said schools also have "a lot of latitude" in censoring
school-sponsored publications, needing only to show that the material
is inconsistent with the school's educational mission. But to censor
an "underground" student paper or a blog, the material needs to have a
negative effect on the school, she said.

Courts generally have rejected student challenges to school dress
codes, she said, if the school can provide an educational reason such
as reducing gang activity.

Less clear is when students wear clothing that expresses religious
beliefs, but those beliefs are contrary to school goals. For example,
she said, a court recently agreed with a school that didn't allow a
student to wear a shirt proclaiming homosexuality as a sin. The school
argued it wanted to prevent harassment of other students.